Portugal is an amazing place to visit: great weather, lovely people, beautiful sights, affordable shopping, and to top it all off, some tasty and intriguing local dishes. One of those dishes is the traditional Portuguese pastry, called Pastel de Nata. Pastel de Nata is actually an egg custard pastry with cinnamon on top, which is simple and yummy.
Fun fact: Pastel de Nata was invented by no other than Catholic monks in Lisbon in the 18th century! Yep, that’s right! Catholic monks were the ones to invent a super popular dessert. How did this come to be, then?
It turns out that back in the day, monasteries used to use a lot of egg whites to starch clothes. As they needed something to do with all the leftover egg yolks, they used them to make pastries, and that’s how the Pastel de Nata was born.
The most popular place to get Pastel de Nata in Lisbon is the Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém coffee and bakery, whose recipe of the traditional pastry is a well-kept secret that only a few lucky people know the ingredients too. And as for us common folk? We can just go there and enjoy a tasty Portuguese pastry with a hot cup of coffee. That works, too.
